Defame1297
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The ADR-0020 body trim took `skill-audit` from 2,623 body words to a dispatch shape, and two things went out with it that were not padding. The manual structural fallback was one. Its replacement was a single sentence telling the auditor to report an INFO when `validate.sh` cannot run — so with no `python3` or no PyYAML, `skill-audit` reported the gap honestly and then audited nothing structural at all. Every ADR-0020 measurement, the whole-file ceilings, the name-to-directory match, the `references/` pointer check and the script hygiene checks silently left the audit. A skill's whole Structure dimension hanging on one optional interpreter is the same vacuous-pass shape the gate scripts were just fixed for, one layer up. The `E100 Runtime error ... does not exist` diagnostic was the other. That exit code means an explicit relative `--config` was passed to `vale-wrap.sh` while vale itself was installed and working; without the note, Step 1's fallback reads exit 2 as "vale unavailable" and downgrades the description, body-discipline and patterns dimensions to full LLM judgment for a config error it could have fixed. That misreading is already recorded in CONTEXT.md as the reason both audit skills stopped passing `--config` at all. Both are restored in `references/validation-scripts.md`, loaded only when a Step 1 script fails — so the body pays nothing for them on a clean run, which is what the dispatch pattern is for. The file also carries the by-hand boundary-target procedure and the three ways to misread the result, including that `INFO ... DID NOT RUN` is not a pass. `references/file-structure.md` gains the one sanctioned spelling for a cross-skill reference. The possessive form (``skill-audit's references/validation-scripts.md``) is the only spelling both rules accept: a full repo path is what that section already forbids, and a bare `references/<file>.md` is now a hard ERROR from the ADR-0020 pointer check, which requires the file to exist in the skill's *own* directory. Without the rule the two constraints look mutually exclusive. Refs: ADR-0020
skill-audit
Audit a skill directory against the agentskills.io specification and the house context-budget contract (ADR-0020). Runs structural validation then a qualitative review across description quality, body discipline, patterns, formatting, file structure, scripts, and internal consistency, plus a provenance chain check.
What it does
- Runs
scripts/validate.shandscripts/validate-provenance.shfor structural and provenance checks, plusscripts/vale-wrap.sh— a Vale prefilter that deterministically flags non-imperative description openers, composition and architecture notes, vague wording, padding phrases, and "There is/are" sentence openers - Reads all files in the skill directory
- Applies qualitative checks across five dimension groups, loading one rubric from
references/per group - Outputs a compact findings report — findings only, grouped by dimension, each with Why and Fix — and a result block with handoff to
skill-author
validate.sh enforces two independent length families that must not be conflated: the agentskills.io spec conformance ceilings (500 lines, 2,770 words, both counting the whole file) and the ADR-0020 context budget (250/400 description characters, 600/900 body-only words).
Alongside those it runs four shape checks that are not length measurements at all. Two are FAILs: every routing target named in the description — in the compressed Not <thing> -> <name> arrow and in the prose form — must resolve to a real skill or agent, and every references/<file>.md the body names must exist on disk. Three are SUGGESTIONs: a missing boundary clause, a Gotchas section over five entries, and a Gotchas section over 25% of the body. The resolution universe for boundary targets is derived by walking up from the audited SKILL.md — the authoring root above it, its own apm package, and that package's declared apm.yml dependencies — so a fresh clone and a machine that has run apm install return the same verdict. When no universe can be determined the check prints INFO ... DID NOT RUN and does not silently pass.
Usage
/skill-audit
Provide the path to the skill directory to audit when invoking.
Files
| File | Purpose |
|---|---|
SKILL.md |
Skill instructions for agents |
scripts/validate.sh |
Structural validator — checks name format, name matches directory, description presence and length, body-only word count, line and whole-file word ceilings, boundary-clause presence, boundary-target resolution, references/ pointer existence, Gotchas entry count and body share, placeholder detection, script executable bit, and interactive-prompt detection |
scripts/validate-provenance.sh |
Provenance validator — checks sources.md completeness, source_keys/slug consistency, Contributing files existence, bidirectional linkage, Research doc: fields, and upstream research doc alignment |
scripts/vale-wrap.sh |
Vale prefilter wrapper — runs the bundled Kyberforge Vale styles against SKILL.md and reports alerts as deterministic FAILs ahead of Step 3's qualitative review |
assets/vale/.vale.ini |
Vale configuration — points Vale at the bundled Kyberforge style path, self-located relative to vale-wrap.sh |
assets/vale/styles/Kyberforge/CompositionNote.yml |
Vale rule — flags composition and architecture notes in a description (e.g. "cross-cutting", "entry point", "rather than duplicating") |
assets/vale/styles/Kyberforge/DescriptionOpener.yml |
Vale rule — flags non-imperative "This..." description openers |
assets/vale/styles/Kyberforge/PaddingPhrase.yml |
Vale rule — flags generic "see references/" padding phrasing in conditional references |
assets/vale/styles/Kyberforge/SentenceOpenerThereIs.yml |
Vale rule — flags body sentences starting with "There is"/"There are" |
assets/vale/styles/Kyberforge/VagueWording.yml |
Vale rule — flags known filler wording (e.g. "helps with", "utilize") |
references/description-quality.md |
Rubric for the description dimension — three-part shape, the 250/400-character budget, the hand-invoked (disable-model-invocation) contract, and the internal-mechanics FAIL |
references/body-discipline.md |
Rubric for the body-discipline dimension — the core test, the 600/900 body-only budget against the 2,770-word whole-file backstop, the mandatory-dispatch rule, and the Gotchas constraints |
references/patterns.md |
Rubric for the patterns dimension — which instruction construct fits which job, and how each is correctly formed |
references/file-structure.md |
Rubric for the file-structure and internal-consistency dimensions — permitted directories, cross-plugin path rules and their two structural exemptions, README drift |
references/formatting-and-scripts.md |
Rubric for the formatting and scripts dimensions — heading and fencing conventions, and the agentic-use criteria for bundled scripts |
references/validation-scripts.md |
Step 1 troubleshooting — the manual structural fallback when validate.sh cannot run, and the script exit codes that are easy to misread (loaded only on a script failure) |
references/sources.md |
Provenance record — agentskills.io sources that informed this skill and which files each contributed to |
tests/validate.bats |
(source-only) Bats test suite for validate.sh |
tests/validate-provenance.bats |
(source-only) Bats test suite for validate-provenance.sh |
tests/README.md |
(source-only) Setup instructions for bats-support and bats-assert test dependencies |
Rows marked (source-only) exist in the authoring source (.apm/skills/skill-audit/) but are
not present in an installed plugin: scripts/sync-plugin-content.sh strips
<category>/<name>/tests when it generates the flat mirror, because these are dev-time fixtures no
plugin host needs to discover (ADR-0017). Run them from a repo checkout, not from an install.